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Last summer I was about as low on C.J. Spiller as anyone and even I didn't expect him to finish the year as RB37. The consensus here at Footballguys had Spiller as RB6 with many ranking him in their top 3 running backs. We had quotes from his coach about "feeding him until he pukes" and plenty of speculation that he'd even see action in the red zone. Fred Jackson was thought to be all but done and Spiller was supposed to have the spotlight all to himself. Of course, things didn't exactly materialize that way.
The most common excuse for Spiller's struggles in 2013 was the combination of leg injuries he suffered early in the year. His knee, quad, and ankle were all banged up in the first four weeks of the season. While it's true that leg injuries hampered Spiller early, I'm not sure we can blame all of his failures on that. Some of the blame (or credit?) needs to go to 32 year old Fred Jackson, who has struggled to get the credit he deserves his entire career. Injuries or not, Jackson outperformed Spiller for most of the year and looked more effective with what the Bills were trying to do on offense. This is a reversal from 2012, when Spiller was much more productive with the ball. Take a look at their performance in games that both players played over the last two seasons.
RUSH/G | RUSH YD/G | REC/G | REC YD/G | TD | |
Jackson '13 | 12.8 | 56.7 | 2.9 | 24.5 | 9 |
Spiller '13 | 13.4 | 61.8 | 2.3 | 13.1 | 2 |
Jackson '12 | 11.5 | 43.7 | 3.4 | 21.7 | 4 |
Spiller '12 | 9.9 | 60.6 | 2.7 | 22.3 | 2 |
So in games that they played together, Jackson saw a negligible increase in touches but a huge increase in production. Spiller saw almost 25% more touches, but actually saw his total yardage go down. Of course, the biggest difference came in touchdowns where Jackson returned to his stellar production while Spiller continued to struggle to get into the end zone. Spiller now has 589 career carries and 12 touchdowns. Since 1990 there are 10 running backs to have that many attempts with that few of touchdowns...none of them are guys you'd like to see Spiller compared to if you own him. To put it in perspective, Ryan Mathews is a guy that struggled in the red zone, specifically with fumbles. He's had the red zone duties taken away from him multiple times, and is seemingly always on thin ice. Mathews scored 13 touchdowns in his first 379 carries. Of course, that's not to say that it's all Spiller's fault that he's scored so little. Consider these facts about the offense he played for:
- The Bills were 22nd in the league in scoring in 2013 despite the fact that they ran more offensive plays than any team other than Denver and New England.
- They were tied for 25th in the league with 34 touchdowns, and 3 of those were scored by the defense.
- Their 6.5 yards per pass attempt was tied for 27th in the league while their 57.3% completion percentage was tied for 28th.
It's hard to be a fantasy RB1 in an offense that terrible and it's even harder to generate respectable touchdown numbers. Even if Spiller had stayed healthy and received the 280+ touches that many were predicting it's difficult to see how he could have met expectations in this offense. Speaking of the offense, while this was a high volume attack, it didn't exactly get Spiller in space as promised. Even early in the year a surprising number of Spiller's touches came between the tackles. He's not built like the kind of back that would find consistent success between the tackles, so it's not really that surprising that he often didn't.
While there's no denying that Spiller looked different for a large part of the year due to injury, it's also easy to see that there were other factors. Fred Jackson's reemergence, the Bills' offensive ineptitude, and some questionable playcalling are just a few of those factors. It's important to recognize that because we have to assume that Spiller will play 2014 relatively injury-free. If we can disregard that factor, what are the odds that the others change?
It's very difficult to imagine that a 33 year-old Fred Jackon could maintain his success, but that's exactly what we thought entering 2013. We can hope that a healthy Spiller will be better utilized, but if he picks up an extra five carries per game between the tackles I'm not sure what kind of production that translates to. The best hope for a bounceback season for Spiller may have very little to do with the man himself. He needs his offense, specifically his quarterback, to take a step forward. E.J. Manuel first has to stay healthy and then he needs to develop rapport with at least one of the young weapons in Buffalo. As Spiller's 5.8 yards per reception indicate, he needs someone to take a little focus off him. It's nearly impossible to get a player in space when the defense knows that he's the only player they need to worry about.
All that being said I would absolutely expect a bounceback from Spiller, just probably not to the level we all expected in 2013. With even a slightly improved passing game and small uptick in usage, I'd project Spiller as a high upside RB2. We've seen his ceiling in the second half of 2012, and we've seen his floor for a large part of last year. There are very few running backs that will be drafted as high as Spiller in 2014 that have as wide a range of possibilities.
Contact Heath 2 cummings@footballguys.com or on Twitter @heathcummingssr.